Don't Tell Mom

Grace and Peace from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
​
Gene Siskel called it “One of the year’s worst movies[1].”
Entertainment Weekly gave it a grade of “D Plus.[2]”
The Washington Post called it “obnoxious[3].”

The story begins with a mother wanting to take a two-month vacation to Australia with her new boyfriend[4].  Not wanting to leave her children aged 17,15,14,13, and 11 home alone fearing disaster, she hires a seemingly kindly old woman to watch her children for the summer.  The babysitter and children quickly clash.  Shortly after this, the babysitter passes away in her sleep.  Being irresponsible children the Crandall children drop off the babysitter’s body at the nursing home. The children are not left with no money and no rules as they seek to make it through the next two months.  The children under no circumstances are going to tell Mom what’s going on.  They didn’t want Mom to make a big deal out of the Babysitter’s death.  So the rest of the movie is the children trying to avoid the seeming disaster which was to come in the wake of the Babysitter’s death.  The name of this cult classic movie is 1991’s “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.”  The plot seems way too unrealistic to take all that seriously, things working out for rowdy children in the wake of their babysitter’s death. 

Today’s lesson has similar plot details[5]: an unexpected death, a desperate family, and scrambling trying to find the way forward.  A man named Lazarus grows ill.  The illness is probably unexpected.  If Lazarus’ dies the consequences would be devastating for his sisters Mary and Martha.  Lazarus was the breadwinner for the family.  Lazarus had done quite well for himself.  If Lazarus had died, his sister's financial situation would have been devasted.  Women in Jesus’ day didn’t work outside the home.  Martha and Mary would have seen the family’s savings slip away, and be left to live the remaining days of their life as nothing more than charity cases[6]. 

Jesus and Lazarus were close.  They were so close to each other that Jesus would frequently dine at Lazarus’ house as mentioned in an earlier Gospel story[7].  So Jesus hears about Lazarus’s illness, Jesus’ response to them was odd.  Jesus pretty much shrugs it off.  Jesus figured that no matter how sick that Lazarus got, things would eventually work out for him in the end.  Jesus was no in real rush to even see Lazarus waiting around an extra two days, regardless of the updates the Disciples give on his condition[8]. 
Jesus’ words upon Lazarus’ death were so casual they imply that his passing is merely a part of life. “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him[9].”  The Disciples were confused. 

So Jesus arrives on the scene of Lazarus’ passing, his siblings Mary and Martha are struggling with trying to find a way forward no different than scrambling children trying to make their way through the summer in both Mom and the Babysitter’s absence.  Mary and Martha blame Jesus for not being there at Lazarus’ death.  Death would seem to be the final judgment of judgments.  You can never cover up the harsh realities of the years ahead with Lazarus’ passing. 

Jesus though wasn’t going to make a big deal about his good friend’s death.  “Take away the stone[10].” “Lazarus, come out[11].”

Jaws drop.  Word of this miracle quickly began to spread.  Rumors of Lazarus’ resurrection convinced the religious authorities that Jesus had to be put to death[12].  The problem with this plan though is Jesus merely thought of his upcoming death as no different than sleep. 

Let me tell you a story from the life of Martin Luther[13].  After Luther got married, he had a permanent house guest named “Magdalene Von Bora” who was an aunt of his wife.  Magadelene like his Luther’s Wife Catherine was a Former Nun who had left the convent.  She moved in with Luther and served as a Nanny for his children.

On the night of her death in 1537.  Luther approached Aunt Lena.  Telling her the following “Your Faith rests on Jesus Christ Alone then quotes our passage.” He is the Resurrection and the Life. You will lack nothing.  You will not die tonight.  Instead, you will fall asleep like an infant in a cradle.  And when the morning dawns, you will rise again and live forever[14]”.  At seven o’clock the next morning, Aunt Lena fell asleep, only to awaken to something eternal and everlasting.  For just as Lazarus had casually waken from his sleep and walked out of the grave, Aunt Lena would soon do the same.

Leon Steir tells the following story. [15]  Once upon a time; there were two men.  These men were sitting in a café no different than Northwood’s over there.  These men were talking like men tend to do at the Café about Minnesota’s weather and the Twins lack of pitching.

Pretty soon though the conversation would take a different tone, Mike is asked: “How have you been feeling lately.”

To which Mike replies: “I’m always weak and sick for a few days after I have my chemotherapy treatments, but then I’m okay again for a couple a weeks[16].”

A friend asks Mike “Are the treatments helping?... “Are you going to be all right?”

Well, Mike replied: “the doctor says he can slow the cancer down a bit, but he probably can’t get rid of it.  He gives me a year, maybe two if I’m lucky[17].”

The room grows silent upon hearing about Mike’s outlook.  Before the man says “Sorry…How are you holding up[18]?”

Mike’s responded: “Well my retirement pension doesn’t worry me anymore[19].” 

Both men started to laugh at Mike’s response.  Mike believed that death would not be the end of his story.  Mike believed like the Crandall children that Summer would go on somehow, some way no matter how desperate the situation around him got.

What happened to Lazarus after he died?  In 1925, Eugene O’Neill wrote a play based on this story called Lazarus Laughed[20].  The play picks up at the end of our lesson.  Lazarus stumbles out of the tomb, readjusts himself to the light, as his family and friends embrace him.

Finally, someone from the crowd shouts “Hey, Lazarus what was being dead like[21]?”
Lazarus is stumped.

“Dead? Oh yeah, I suppose I was dead as far as what all of you saw of it.  But that is only how it looks from here.  There is no death, really.  For my part, it was just life.  Life here, and then life there.  I remember being sick here, and I suppose I went to sleep, and then died.  But all I remember is just waking up there, in that other place, and it was wonderful.  And the One who met me there was the one who gave me life here in the first place.  Death is only a moment, just a doorway through which we move from here into a greater life.  There is nothing to be afraid of, I tell you[22].”

Lazarus will die again someday, yet he knows like in the case of Mike or Luther’s Aunt Magdalene that he has nothing to fear.  And one last bit of advice, if your Babysitter were to die, “You don’t need to call your Mom and make a big deal out of it.”  Amen
 
                 


[1] Wieselman, Jarrett. “How "Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead” Went From D.O.A. To Beloved Cult Classic.” BuzzFeed. 04.June.2015. Web. July.3.2017. 
[2] Wieselman, Jarrett. “How "Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead” Went From D.O.A. To Beloved Cult Classic.”
[3] Wieselman, Jarrett. “How "Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead” Went From D.O.A. To Beloved Cult Classic
[4] “Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. 9.June.2017. Web. July.3.2017. 
[5] John 11:1-44. 
[6] Background notes come from “Jesus Wept” sermon given at Sychar on April 6th, 2014. 
[7] Luke 10:38-42. 
[8] John 11:6. 
[9] John 11:11. 
[10] John 11:39. 
[11] John 11:43. 
[12] John 11:45-57. 
[13] Tappert, Theodore. G. Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel. Regent College Publishing. 2nd Edition. 2003. Print. P.45-46. 
[14] Tappert, Theodore. G. Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel. P.45-46. 
[15] Stier, Leon. “Lazarus Laughed.” Email Mediations.28.May.2017. Web. July.3.2017. 
[16] Stier, Leon. “Lazarus Laughed.”
[17] Stier, Leon. “Lazarus Laughed.”
[18] Stier, Leon. “Lazarus Laughed.”
[19] Stier, Leon. “Lazarus Laughed.”
[20] Stier, Leon. “Lazarus Laughed.”
[21] Stier, Leon. “Lazarus Laughed.”
[22] Stier, Leon. “Lazarus Laughed.”